Cosmopolitanism, the global middle class and education: the case of universities in London

Abstract

In this paper, I develop the idea of cosmopolitan stances–one ‘intellectual’ and the other ‘aesthetic’–to examine conceptions of cosmopolitanism within a range of university strategies. Recent research into cosmopolitanism has adopted a Bourdieusian lens, understanding it as cultural capital, which acts as a locus of stratification in the global system. By examining the strategies in 11 London-based universities, this paper sought to identify which cosmopolitan stances are mobilised. Following a thematic analysis this paper argues that those stances privileged by the global middle class are often implicit and generated incidentally as a function of other initiatives such as inclusivity and diversity, global citizenship, placement opportunities and graduate attributes/outcomes.